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Equity Insider News Commentary
BOCA RATON, Fla., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The most expensive commodity story in America right now is the one that moves everything else. On September 4, 2026 the national average price of diesel reached an all-time high of $5.85 a gallon, according to AAA, surpassing the record set in June 2022. Three days later it went higher still, to $5.9015. A year ago the same gallon cost $3.71. On the eve of the war with Iran it cost $3.76. Six months of disrupted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and crude in the $90 range have added more than two dollars to the price of the fuel that runs freight, agriculture, construction and, less visibly, a very large share of the country's backup and off-grid electricity.
Active Companies from around the markets with current developments this week include: NOMAD Power Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMAD), Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GNRC), Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), and United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI).
The market absorbing that increase is larger than most people assume. MarketsandMarkets sizes the global diesel generator market at approximately US$19.26 billion in 2026, projecting roughly US$25.61 billion by 2031 at a compound annual growth rate of about 5.9%, in a report summary published August 21, 2026. Grand View Research, measuring the category differently, puts it at about US$21.2 billion in 2026. Those figures describe equipment sales. They do not describe what it costs to run the equipment, and that is where the current dislocation lands.
Industry estimates commonly place fuel at 70% to 80% of the total lifetime operating cost of a diesel generator. If that holds even approximately, the purchase price of a generator is close to a rounding error against what its owner spends feeding it over a working life, and the line item that dominates the economics has risen by more than half in twelve months. For a business running a generator continuously rather than occasionally, that is not a procurement question. It is a margin question.
The reason the increase bites so hard is a matter of how a conventional generator works rather than how well it works. A genset supplies load directly, which means it runs whenever power is required, at whatever load is present. Running at partial load is materially less efficient than running near rated capacity, and idle capacity still burns fuel. A machine sized for a peak that occurs twice a day spends most of its hours consuming diesel to produce electricity nobody is drawing.
The sector's own research points at where the response is going. In the same August analysis, MarketsandMarkets identifies peak shaving as the fastest-growing application segment in the diesel generator market at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 6.5%, and describes the category as evolving toward hybrid-ready systems that integrate battery storage and energy management in order to optimize fuel use. In other words, the fastest-growing thing you can do with a diesel generator, according to the people who count the market, is run it less.
That is the structural opening. Pairing storage with generation changes the generator's job from supplying load to recharging a battery, which lets it run in efficient bursts rather than continuously at partial load. The idea is not new. What is new is a fuel price that makes the arithmetic urgent, and a class of storage that can be moved to wherever the arithmetic is worst.
NOMAD Power Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMAD) Positions Mobile Battery Storage Against a Record Diesel Price
- Operates mobile, utility-grade, truck-transportable battery energy storage systems deployed on semi-trailers.
- Serves utilities, industrial operators, government agencies and critical infrastructure providers through equipment sales, rentals and Energy-as-a-Service arrangements.
- Describes a configuration pairing a mobile battery system with a diesel generator, designed so the generator runs intermittently to recharge the battery rather than continuously to supply load.
- The Company describes that configuration as targeting a reduction in diesel consumption of approximately 75% against a standalone generator. This is a stated design target, not a reported operating result.
- Holds, through its subsidiary NOMAD Transportable Power Systems, Inc., an issued United States patent covering utility-scale lithium-ion battery transporters, with a continuation application pending on the same subject matter.
NOMAD Power Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMAD) is an energy infrastructure equipment and services platform headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The Company introduced a mobile, utility-grade, truck-transportable battery energy storage system, and its platforms are deployed on semi-trailers and delivered to customers through equipment sales, rentals and Energy-as-a-Service offerings. It reached its current form in July 2026, when LIXTE Biotechnology Holdings, Inc. completed a merger with NOMAD Transportable Power Systems, Inc. and adopted the NOMAD Power Solutions name; shares ceased trading under LIXT on July 2, 2026 and began trading under NMAD on July 6, 2026, as set out in the Company's announcement of the completed name change.
The transaction expanded the Company's operations and strategic focus into energy infrastructure, which is now its primary focus. It does not represent a complete departure from the Company's biotechnology roots; the legacy oncology and medical technology assets continue to be maintained and advanced while the Company evaluates strategic opportunities for that portfolio.
Against the diesel backdrop, the relevant part of the platform is the duty cycle. The Company describes a configuration in which a mobile battery energy storage system is paired with a diesel generator so that the generator no longer supplies load directly. Instead it runs intermittently, in efficient bursts, to recharge the battery, and the battery carries the load between those bursts. The Company describes this arrangement as targeting a reduction in diesel consumption of roughly 75% relative to a standalone generator running continuously.
That figure is the Company's stated target rather than a disclosed operating result, and readers should treat it accordingly. What can be evaluated independently is the direction of the logic. If fuel is 70% to 80% of lifetime operating cost, and the fuel price has risen from $3.76 to $5.90 a gallon since the war began, then any change to a generator's run hours moves a very large number. A machine that ran twenty hours a day to serve an intermittent load is a different financial proposition from one that runs five to recharge storage, at any diesel price, and a considerably different one at this diesel price.
The second element is mobility, and it deserves a more careful description than it is usually given. Fixed, grid-tied battery installations typically require interconnection studies and utility approvals, a queue that is among the most cited bottlenecks in energy storage deployment. A transportable unit does not sit in that queue in the same way, which is a real advantage in speed and in the ability to redeploy an asset to wherever the economics are most favorable. It does not follow that mobility eliminates permitting altogether. Site, transport, fire, environmental and utility operating requirements still apply, and any connection into a distribution network still requires an approved interconnection arrangement. The honest version of the claim is that mobile deployment avoids the fixed-installation interconnection queue, not that it removes regulatory process.
The Company's subsidiary, NOMAD Transportable Power Systems, Inc., is the assignee of record of United States patent number 12,391,084, granted August 19, 2025, covering transporters for utility-scale lithium-ion batteries, with a continuation application pending on the same subject matter. Patent records are public through the USPTO. The scope of those claims, and any conclusion about exclusivity in mobile storage, is a legal question that patent numbers alone do not answer.
The customer set the Company identifies for mobile storage is the same set most exposed to the diesel price: construction and infrastructure sites without grid access, telecommunications infrastructure, data centers, oil and gas and mining operations, ports and logistics facilities, and utility storm and outage response. Each of those absorbs fuel cost directly into operations today. The Company was added to the Russell Microcap Index in June 2026.
There are several risks associated with the Company's plans.
NOMAD Power Solutions is a small-capitalization company that reached its present form through a July 2026 merger, and its operating history in energy infrastructure is correspondingly short. The merger consideration included preferred stock convertible into approximately 50,366,070 common shares subject to stockholder approval, which represents substantial potential dilution to existing holders and is disclosed in the Company's filings. The approximately 75% diesel reduction described in this article is the Company's stated design target for a generator-and-storage configuration, not a reported operating result or an independently verified test outcome, and actual savings would depend on load profile, duty cycle, unit sizing, site conditions and utilization. Mobility reduces exposure to the fixed-installation interconnection queue but does not eliminate permitting, transport, fire, environmental or utility operating requirements. Deploying a fleet of storage assets is capital intensive and would require financing that has not been secured. The Company competes for the same customers as manufacturers and rental operators many multiples its size, several of which are named in this article and several of which are themselves developing hybrid and storage-integrated offerings. Diesel prices are set by geopolitical events outside any company's control and can fall as quickly as they rose, which would compress the cost advantage described here. Readers should review the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov in full.
Read this and more news for NOMAD Power Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMAD) at: https://equity-insider.com
The power generation and temporary power market is growing fast, the same fuel arithmetic is showing up in different places:
Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GNRC) is the clearest read on how quickly demand for large-scale backup generation is growing, and on where the money is going. The company designs and manufactures energy technology and power products across residential, commercial and industrial markets.
In its second quarter 2026 results, the company reported Commercial and Industrial segment external net sales up approximately 29%, with gross profit margin of 44.5% against 39.3% a year earlier. It disclosed a global supply agreement with a leading hyperscale data center operator for backup power generators, secured a second such agreement with another hyperscale customer in June, and completed an acquisition expanding capacity for large megawatt generator packaging. Management maintained full-year net sales growth guidance in the mid-to-high teens percent range.
The point worth extracting for this article is not the growth rate but the composition. The fastest-growing part of the backup power market is very large generators sold to data centers, which are exactly the installations that run least often and matter most when they do. That is a different problem from the one facing a construction site or a remote industrial operation running a genset continuously, and it is a useful reminder that backup power and prime power are separate markets with separate economics.
Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) supplies the engines inside a large share of the world's generator sets, and its Power Systems segment has become the clearest indicator of how tight that supply has become.
Reporting second quarter 2026 results on August 4, 2026, the company posted record total revenue of approximately $9.46 billion, with Power Systems revenue at a record $2.26 billion, up 19% year over year, and segment EBITDA margin expanding to 24.5% from 22.8%. Management raised full-year revenue growth guidance to a range of 10% to 13%, citing continued strength in power generation driven by data center markets, and disclosed a multi-year agreement with a global hyperscaler covering visibility into several gigawatts of future backup generator demand.
The detail that matters most is a constraint rather than a result. Management indicated that demand for large generator sets has outpaced manufacturing capacity and that the order book extends into the second half of 2028, with some customers adopting smaller configurations to meet immediate needs. When a buyer cannot obtain the generator it wants for two years, alternatives that can be delivered sooner acquire a value that has nothing to do with fuel efficiency.
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) provides the widest view of the power buildout, and its most recent quarter was the largest in the company's history.
For the second quarter of 2026 the company reported sales and revenues of $20.5 billion, up 24% year over year and the first quarter above $20 billion in its history. Power and Energy segment sales were $8.238 billion, up 17%, with power generation sales of $3.098 billion, up 29%, driven by large reciprocating engines and turbines in data center applications; segment profit rose 30% to $2.027 billion. The figures are set out in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Management raised full-year revenue growth guidance to a mid-to-high teens percentage range.
On its earnings call the company described total backlog reaching approximately $72 billion, and characterised demand as no longer the limiting factor in Power and Energy, pointing instead to manufacturing capacity, lead times and site-level power availability as the binding constraints. That last phrase is the sector's whole problem stated by its largest participant. The scarce input is not equipment orders. It is power that can be delivered where and when it is needed.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) occupies the channel through which a large share of temporary power actually reaches a job site. It is the largest equipment rental company in the world, operating more than 1,600 rental locations across North America.
The company reported record second quarter 2026 results on July 22, 2026: total revenue of $4.410 billion including rental revenue of $3.849 billion, net income of $753 million, adjusted EBITDA of $2.056 billion at a 46.6% margin, and fleet productivity up 3.4% year over year, with full-year 2026 guidance raised. The results were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8-K.
Specialty rental revenue rose approximately 25% year over year, with management citing power as a growth area alongside demand from large projects in construction, industrial power, data centers and infrastructure. The relevance here is structural rather than competitive. A rental customer does not own the generator, but it does buy the fuel, which means the rental channel is where an equipment-level fuel saving would translate most directly into a customer-level cost saving, and where a fleet operator has the strongest incentive to offer one.